Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that current U.S. immigration policy amounts to “de facto amnesty,” as he responded to conservative criticism against amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“I’ve got a news flash for those who want to call people names on amnesty. What we have now is de facto amnesty,” Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, told Fox News Thursday.

“We have 11 million people here that have been here, some of them for a decade or more. No one is telling them to go home. No one is sending them home.”
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So what would Paul tell illegal immigrants?

“I would say if you want to work, we’ll find a place for you, but that doesn’t mean that you get special privileges,” the potential presidential candidate said.

“It just means we’ll get you a work visa. Work visas, really, we have plenty of work visas to give every year. We’re not giving them out because the process is too onerous. So we need to make the facility of getting a work visa much easier.”

Paul said Wednesday that his immigration plan consists of conferring work visas on illegal immigrants and that he is “open to debate” about what comes next, Politico reports.